The Other Side of Things: Education
by Ghost Gangster Baby Kate
Summary: Timetravel. Ichigo loses a war no one wanted to fight in the first place. Miraculously gaining a second chance, he decides that his best option is to simply prevent it from ever happening. He has a long way to go before reaching a position from which he can actually affect things, but neither that nor the sacrifices he has to make will deter him. First stop: the Shinigami Academy.
1. Chapter 1

AN: This story follows canon as far as the fullbringers' arc. Then it diverges completely and chances are you won't read anything of what the manga describes after that. Enjoy.

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Chapter 1

By the time the Gotei 13 attacked Karakura, Kurosaki Ichigo had gotten used to the green bolts. They had been around for the past few hours, scaring away most inhabitants and causing the huge miles-wide traffic jam the town was suffering at the moment. The red-head watched them slither through the air like serpents of destruction, lighting up everything they hit or even come close to. They all originated from the enormous rift in the dimensional barrier, tore open like a wide, hungry mouth and vomiting out ever-increasing green bolts into the night. The hole was now as tall as one of the sky-scrapers of the town and twice as large. It glowed sinisterly in the dark, fluorescent and shifting, and unapproachable now that it was so protected by the deadly electricity.

Ichigo watched it out of the corner of his eye as he shook his sword-arm to loosen it from Ukitake's numbing blow. Tensa Zangetsu swung gently as he did so, the black metal of its bankai form reflecting that unnatural lightning much like obsidian would. A trickle of sweat rolled down his cheek as he took in a deep breath.

In front of him, Kyoraku and Ukitake stood at the ready, their tattered uniforms still smoldering after his latest Getsuga Tensho. The 8th Division Captain was definitely the one worse off of the two, leaning heavily on his left leg while his broken right arm dangled uselessly from a dislocated socket. He had shifted his sword to his weak hand and, although still a threat, his fighting power had been reduced drastically. The 13th Division Captain, instead, was pretty much unscathed except for a shallow gash on his chest, but he was panting hard and with effort. His sickness had never gotten better in the fifteen plus years Ichigo had known him, and after such a strenuous battle and so much energy spent, he was twice as tired as his old-time friend.

A little pang of sympathy was ruthlessly crushed before it could grow dangerous and Ichigo found himself scowling at his opponents and at the whole damning situation.

"Get out of my way!" he shouted.

Kyoraku shook his head slowly.

"You know we can't do that."

The red-head saw the sadness in his eyes and, underneath it, unmovable resolution. Ukitake was no different, and Ichigo could only let out a frustrated sound, halfway between an angry shout and a pained groan.

Why did it have to end like this?

Thunder rumbled behind him and he took a moment to check the green lightning crackling around the dimensional rift.

That was why.

Jaw set in a mask of determination, he turned forward again and called for his inner hollow.

"I'm sorry," he said honestly, but he was sure the deranged smile of his rapidly forming mask looked eerie and jarring in comparison to the words.

Kyoraku smiled as well, grim like he had never seen him before.

"We know."

Reiatsu rising to a new incredible level, Ichigo lifted Tensa Zangetsu and lunged.

"Berry-tan!"

A blur of movement stopped him on his tracks and he barely had to wait the time of a blink before Mashiro and Kensei appeared in front of him to face the two shinigami.

"Ichigo, don't fool around back here!" said the former Captain of the 9th division. "We need you at the rift! They're all protecting Sui-Feng and we can't reach her! She's going to use it any time, now!"

"I know! I can feel it, too!" Ichigo replied quickly, gesturing with his blade at the "hindrance" that had stalled him. "I was on my way."

"We'll take care of these two, Berry-tan," Mashiro said confidently. Her voice sounded cheery and childish even in all this mess. "They only have half a beating left in them, anyway."

Already turning away, Ichigo smiled slightly.

"Thanks, guys."

He was about to shunpo away when Ukitake moved to block him, only to find his sword parried by Kensei's. Mashiro had engaged Kyoraku, too.

"Go," the vizard said.

Ichigo nodded and ran.

He reached the rift not two seconds later, traveling for miles and miles at such a speed that sound struggled to keep up. He stopped only when the battle was in front of him, chaos and death swirling together in a sea of reiatsu. Looming over everything, the hole in the world cackled madly with its unnatural green tongues of fire.

Ichigo glared at it hatefully, before scanning the crowd of shinigami and former shinigami, vizards and full-bringers, to search for the weapon sent to destroy Karakura.

"Ichigo! Over here!"

_Yoruichi!_

He looked up and at the roof from where the voice had come, moving hastily towards it and getting rid of whoever stepped in his way as he went. Tensa Zangetsu hesitated only slightly before cutting down Hisagi and then Ise. Soon after climbing the building, he found the dark-skinned woman, zanpakuto clashing in a flurry of blows against Kenpachi's. Beside her fought the strongest of Karakura's defense, roughly in a circle around a momentarily safe patch of battleground.

In the middle of it all, Sui-Feng stood with her missile launcher pointed down at the town.

It felt like time stopped to Ichigo when he saw smoke start coming out of the cannon's mouth. Before he could even process the thought, he flash-stepped over dead and living alike until he appeared in front of the woman. With a swing of Tensa Zangetsu, he struck the missile launcher and redirected it upwards, much to the 2nd Division Captain's surprise. She could do nothing but brace herself as her bankai fired its destructive power to the sky. It flew up and slightly to the left, swirling around seemingly without control, leaving behind a trail of smoke and a painfully loud whistling sound.

Blades still crossed, Ichigo glared at Sui-Feng. She stared back at him.

"I never miss," she said.

Something in her tone gave him pause. She hadn't said that in a disbelieving manner, but like someone simply stating a fact. He looked up again and saw with heart-wrenching dread that the missile was quickly changing course and turning around and towards them. Others had noticed it too by now and those who had cheered before were now left speechless or distraught. Eyes widening impossibly, Ichigo forced himself to ignore them, and to breathe and think again, while the airborne bankai aimed back to its original target. He had only leaned back half an inch, ready to do something, _anything_, when the woman spoke up.

"Don't," she warned him as if she had just read his mind. As with Ukitake and Kyoraku, there seemed to be deep sadness hidden beneath her ruthless resolve. "It's over."

Pushing her away with Tensa Zangetsu, he ran desperately to the building's ledge while she stumbled under her heavy and inconvenient zanpakuto in bankai form. Stepping to the very limit of the roof, he jumped up in the air and used shunpo to gain as much altitude as possible. Once done, the missile was almost exactly above him, pummeling down fast and hard. Hoping against hope that his plan would work and that it wouldn't blast him to smithereens, he put his left hand in his pocket and fished for Kon.

As soon as he felt the stuffed animal against his palm and fingers, he pointed the sword up at Sui-Feng's attack. A small heart-shaped beam left the tip of his blade not unlike a Getsuga Tensho would, shooting upwards, aimed at the missile. He managed to hit despite its erratic movements but to an outside viewer it would have looked like nothing had happened. Hopefully, something had.

While the bankai wheezed past him and down towards Karakura, Ichigo flash-stepped up one last time and pulled Kon out of his pocket.

"I permit you!" he cried.

The effect was instantaneous as the smoking projectile slowed down first and stopped then, as if pulled back by invisible reins. Ichigo watched as the missile's image started to distort under his eyes like a blurred photograph, until its shape wasn't recognizable anymore. A heartbeat later, the missile had flowed not unlike an upwards stream to get inside the stuffed animal.

Then the whole thing exploded in his hand.

It was his full-bring armor that saved his life. If it hadn't been for that protective shell around his body, not even the high-speed regeneration of his inner hollow or his own immense reiatsu would have done a thing. As it was, the terrible explosion that destroyed Kon simply smashed against his powers with the impact of a demolition ball, only tossing him a hundred feet away instead of blowing him up. The noise was awful, though, stunning him to the point where it took him a while to regain his bearings.

After he had blinked to a finally stable and solid world, Ichigo looked down at himself and let out a relieved breath. Aside for the disintegrated full-bring armor and hollow mask and the half-destroyed shihakusho – which meant his reiatsu level had taken a pretty big hit – everything was fine. No body parts missing, luckily enough.

Mentally thanking Riruka's dying gift, the red-head cleared the rubble off himself and stood up, ignoring the building in ruins he was leaving behind. A part of him wouldn't stop wondering about what would have happened if the bankai hadn't been reduced in size and power by his borrowed full-bring ability. Another part of him started thinking about how Karakura wouldn't stand a chance, instead. Sui-Feng was probably readying another one of her missiles right that moment.

He performed his next shunpo with the knowledge that his life and that of everyone in his hometown depended on it. Moving faster than sound, he arrived right in the epicenter of the battle, on the roof where the strongest fighters were killing each other. He was glad to see that Sui-Feng was currently busy fending off Yoruichi's attacks, golden zanpakuto moving much more slowly than normal while in its huge bankai form. A number of lower seats fought alongside her, desperately trying to give their Captain the necessary time to blast off a second attack.

"Ichigo! Look out!"

Warning recognized as Renji's and instincts kicking in, Ichigo ducked and rolled out of the way as a chipped blade swished down to behead him, only cracking the roof instead. If it hadn't been for Sui-Feng equipping that same building to endure her bankai and especially for Hachi lying out his protective Kido, the power behind the blow would have leveled the place to the ground. He looked up at the owner of that worn down zanpakuto, who couldn't have been anyone but Kenpachi, now advancing towards him with two swords sticking out of his back and a mad grin on his face.

"Ichigo!" he called, both his eyes showing. "Nice of you to join the brawl! Let's die together in this hellhole, hm? What do you say?"

The red-head gritted his teeth in anger, but once again it was short-lived. Frustration replaced it almost immediately as the reality of the situation resurfaced to the forefront of his mind. He blocked the first blow and replied in kind, while green bolts of lightning flashed behind the mountain of a man.

"Dammit, Kenpachi! I don't have time for this!"

"Make some," was the immediate reply.

Sparks flew between them after every clash, but Ichigo was also hitting flesh, occasionally. The 11th Division Captain didn't seem to notice, though, only relenting in his attacks when Renji suddenly appeared next to them.

"What do you think you're doing?"

The newcomer didn't hesitate a moment in front of Kenpachi's threatening tone. Zabimaru's vertebras suddenly lifted in the air and began swirling around them, while their owner scowled harshly. He glanced at Ichigo.

"Put a stop to this madness."

Not wasting one second, Ichigo pushed Zaraki's sword away from his and rushed out of the circling segments of Renji's zanpakuto.

Once out, he ignored the angry calls behind his back as he scanned the crowd in search of Sui-Feng. He couldn't trust his sensing abilities in such a reiatsu-charged chaos, but his eyes didn't exactly have a much easier time. People were skewering each other everywhere he looked, killing opponents that until a few hours before had been veritable brothers, friends and allies. A mix of emotions tried to overcome him at that, but he ruthlessly pushed it back to a manageable level. In his fifteen years of struggle as a substitute shinigami, he had always been somewhat of an outsider in Soul Society, and yet he couldn't help but feel a horrible revulsion towards this war and what it was forcing him to do. He couldn't imagine what some of those people were experiencing.

He spotted Sui-Feng the exact moment she got rid of Yoruichi, passing her over to Ikkaku much like Ichigo had done with Kenpachi. Unlike his deranged Captain, though, the bald shinigami seemed to be affected by the mess. He wasn't sporting his usual grin, which was almost a first as far as the red-head could remember. He stopped watching when his three oversized weapons started raging against Yoruichi's.

He went after Sui-Feng, trying to gain on her surprise at seeing him alive. He realized that was her sentiment right as they crossed swords, when she stared at him as if he was a ghost first, and a damn persistent one after that. Tensa Zangetsu rang against her missile launcher as she pushed him backwards.

"You don't die easily, I'll give you that, Kurosaki," she said.

Ichigo struggled to hear her over the sound of battle all around.

"I'll never let you destroy Karakura," he replied just as quietly.

"This isn't about your hometown, and you know it."

He scowled at her.

"But it is. As much as it is about the Seireitei and the Rukongai. If I don't do anything, Karakura will disappear. If _you_ don't do anything, they will. It's as simple as that."

"Is that what you tell yourself?" she asked, frost seeping into her voice. "To justify this selfish resistance? Saving Karakura is _not_ the same as saving Soul Society… by any standard imaginable. Who will fight the hollows when shinigami will be no more or brutally reduced in number? Who will direct the lost souls you call Pluses? Who will defend your whole world if not us?"

"Defend from whom?" he snapped. "Look around! Hollows aren't destroying my home! Shinigami are!"

As if on clue, a man he vaguely recognized as a lower seat of the 8th Division charged at him from the right. Ichigo dodged his initial thrust and impaled him before he could attack again. He turned around immediately, fearing that Sui-Feng had run away to give her bankai another go, but he found her upon him, instead, missile launcher swinging like a club. With his sword still stuck inside the shinigami's stomach, the red-head hurried through a low-level Kido and managed to deflect the blow to harmlessly hit the ground, with the knowledge that, if Suzumebachi had been in its stinger or even wakizashi form, he wouldn't have had nearly long enough to save his life. By the time she moved to strike again, he had already extracted Tensa Zangetsu and parried.

"Really an impractical bankai…" he commented, letting his blade graze against the huge weapon. "Go back to shikai if you don't want to die."

He met her eyes once again but had to will himself not to flinch back when he realized what hid in them. Anger, frustration and pain. He imagined he would see the same if he looked inside a mirror.

"Stop this, Kurosaki," she all but whispered. "If Soul Society dies… if _we_ die, millions… no, _billions_ between mortals and souls will be destroyed with us! Life as we know it will disappear in the chaos and violence that will follow! Karakura itself won't survive it!"

He stepped away from her but couldn't bring himself to avert her gaze.

"Should I give up, then?" he said quietly. "Sacrifice my town… my family and friends so as to let you, or even the world, survive?" His own voice cracked under the pressure as a wave of emotions flooded his throat. "I can't. I just can't"

"There's no other way," Sui-Feng said. "We tried everything, too! Do you think Urahara was the only one to look for a different solution? Do you think _this_ is what we wanted? If we had discovered sooner… if only we weren't so pressed for time…"

She swallowed, sentence left incomplete and eyes moving almost on their own volition towards the gargantuan rift in the dimensional barrier. By now, the hole between worlds was getting bigger before their eyes, glowing ever so brightly in its own storm of lightning. It was only a matter of minutes before the energy-leak going from Soul Society to Karakura would decree the end of the former. And who knew what would happen to the latter…

"I'm sorry," Ichigo finally said, interrupting their silence. All around them, swords continued clashing and people kept on dying. He peeled his eyes off the growing rift and looked at her. "I can't stand down. The price is too high."

She breathed in deeply and exhaled even more slowly. "That goes both ways."

He smiled sadly, bringing his free hand up to his face in order to lower down his hollow mask.

"I'm going to stop you," he said, but Sui-Feng shook her head at that.

"Karakura is going to fall," she said with finality and a green bolt of lightning came crashing down exactly between them, almost drowning out her voice, "one way or another."

For the second time that night, her own words gave her away. As soon as she had uttered them, Ichigo reeled back as if slapped, his sword lowering an inch, burdened by sudden panic.

"You're stalling me…" he all but whispered.

And then he felt him, in the other side of town, his reiatsu a barely perceivable pressure at the back of his senses.

_Mayuri_.

He attacked at once, dread rising up his throat like a retch, and he didn't even notice when Tensa Zangetsu clashed against Sui-Feng's zanpakuto. He used everything he had in the next few seconds, reinforcing his Getsuga Tensho with what remained of his fullbring and firing Balas and Ceros rapidly from his mask's horns. When he was done, the woman's right arm had blackened like a charred log and her weapon had reversed to its wakizashi form. She was panting harshly, back pressed against the half-destroyed ledge of the building as she stared at him.

He didn't look back. A sonido and then a shunpo brought him away from both the building and the rift and into the air above. Sui-Feng wasn't in any state to use her bankai again, while Mayuri was acting unopposed in the other side of Karakura right that moment. He needed to reach him before it was too late. Desperately trying not to think about what devious way the mad scientist had conceived to destroy his home, Ichigo ignored the few shinigami who tried to keep up with him and continued on his way.

He had to fling himself to a side a few instants later, no easy feat to accomplish while floating in the air. Sui-Feng appeared beside him, deadly stinger extended to reach him. She had miraculously managed shikai even under those conditions, switching her Suzumebachi to the left hand, while it wasn't so impossible to believe that she had caught up with him. She was unparalleled in speed among the Gotei 13, after all.

But she was speeding towards death.

She knew that, Ichigo realized it with but a look at her face. There was no way she could stop him so wounded, but apparently, slowing him down was good enough for her.

She made no sound when he cut her down with Tensa Zangetsu.

Ichigo watched her die for a precious long second, her fierce eyes and expression burning in his mind like a hot brand. Then he looked ahead and flash-stepped forward.

He finally saw Mayuri when he reached the southern outskirts of Karakura, but it was impossible not to see his creation first. Unlike Big J, as Ichigo had started to call the man's bankai, the huge creature hovering beside the scientist had nothing even remotely resembling a human. The red-head only had the time to catch the similarities with an octopus as he launched himself against its master, who was conveniently giving him his back while tinkering with his device.

He realized too late that he was charging head-first into a trap.

He noticed Nemu first, standing a few feet to her father's left, reiatsu almost perfectly erased even from this short distance. Old man Yamamoto's was completely untraceable, instead, and the first sign of his presence he saw was the gleaming light reflected by his sword.

Tensa Zangetsu lifting just in time to parry, Ichigo was thrown with tremendous force towards Nemu who, meanwhile, had opened a path to the Dangai via a little device in her hands. The red-head flew through it, skidding to a stop just shy of a time current whose touch would have meant his death. As he regained his balance, he could only stare helplessly as Nemu closed the opening behind her back, positively cutting him off the human world.

And leaving him at the mercy of the Captain Commander of the Gotei 13, who was now standing in front of him with no emotion on his face.

Koryu swirled all around them, streaming up and down and left and right, like countless walls of impenetrable water. The place wasn't acting like normal, since there didn't seem to be any attempt to attack him by the usually hostile currents, but that didn't help his situation all that much. There was no escape. His inner hollow gave him powers over the Precipice World only when the Koryu were stopped by the Kaikyo Kotei… it was impossible to create a way to Hueco Mundo otherwise.

Old man Yamamoto had planned it all. Ukitake and Kyoraku had been the first line of defense, Sui-Feng the distraction and Mayuri the bait. And now the Commander himself was going to be the executioner. Even if by some kind of miracle Ichigo was able to survive or escape the fight, he was positively trapped inside the Dangai with no way out. In the meantime, whatever they had been readying out there was going to destroy Karakura and no one would be able to stop it.

He had been played for sucker; that was the reality of things.

At that realization, a big chunk of Ichigo's brain wanted nothing else than to freak out. The situation was beyond desperate and no real solution managed to come out on top of the raging storm involving his thoughts. Despite that, something inside of him simply refused to give up, now or ever.

Gripping Tensa Zangetsu more tightly, Ichigo glared at his opponent.

"Let me out."

He drew every ounce of energy he could to himself, reiatsu rising to unimaginable levels. His Shihakusho had been restored almost in its entirety after the high-speed regeneration from his inner hollow had done its job, and his full-bring reserves had slowly returned with it. Barely noticing it when Yamamoto increased his own spiritual pressure, the red-head raised his zanpakuto.

"I said," and he punctuated his words with another flare of energy, "let me out."

It wasn't the first time he acted so disrespectfully with the Captain Commander but it _was_ the first time the old man didn't reprimand him for it. Yamamoto remained quiet, stony expression not allowing anything of what he internally felt to transpire. Ryujin Jakka rested at his side, inscrutable like its master while in its dormant shikai form, not letting out even a glimpse of its fiery power and heat.

Despite the evident lack of threat in the Commander's outside appearance, Ichigo had to calm his own heart-rate down before he started hyperventilating. He knew, on both a conscious and an instinctive level, that if he moved to attack, odds were highly stacked against him surviving, and that was positive thinking too. He also knew that diving into one of the Koryu was _not_ an option, unless he wanted to be dragged a thousand years into the future and die of old age sometime during the trip.

But what else could he do?

He charged with all the speed he could master, firing a Getsuga Tensho as he went. Yamamoto used shunpo to dodge the crescent-shaped attack and met him mid-air, zanpakuto finally lighting up as its steel met Tensa Zangetsu's. Flames rose to lick at Ichigo's Shihakusho but the high-density reiatsu he was wielding snuffed them away as if they were mere candles. Still, the power behind the blow itself gave the red-head pause and the instant it made him waste was enough to let the old man gain the initiative.

Ryujin Jakka came swishing down on him with speed and grace, and it was with great effort that Ichigo managed to stop it from slipping under his guard in the following thrust. He pushed it away immediately after that and let out a short-distance moon fang that forced the Commander to sidestep. He followed it up with a rapid volley of Balas, shooting them from every body-part that wasn't currently busy firing off more Getsuga Tensho. He threw in a few low-level Hado as well, deciding to mix it up a little in the off-chance to surprise the old man.

Yamamoto came out unscathed. He dodged what he could and parried what he couldn't. Blasts of hollow-power and shinigami spells died out against his Kido with barely a fizzle, while the flames of his zanpakuto rose impossibly high to make bearable whatever else passed through. Fire started to roar loudly then, as Taimatsu was thrown at Ichigo like a rushing inferno.

When the red-head moved the hell out of the way, he found himself face-to-face with his opponent. The next exchange was more dictated by instincts than any actual decision-making process from the brain, at least for Ichigo. Tensa Zangetsu seemed to drop almost on its own volition to intercept Ryujin Jakka and then lift again to strike on the offensive.

The bout went on for the next few seconds, until one of the Commander's feints finally put Ichigo in a too difficult position to defend. The old man's sword flashed towards his chest and only a near one-eighty saved his heart. Instead, the blade went on to pierce his left arm, almost severing it right above the elbow.

The red-head jumped away with a hiss of pain, tossing a Getsuga Tensho to cover his retreat. Yamamoto moved to avoid it like any other attack and only his own wound stopped Ichigo from grinning. Blocking out of his mind the sharp twinge coming from his arm, the substitute shinigami struggled to control his full-bring and extend it towards the opponent. A black tongue of power seemed to rise from the speeding moon fang, then, stretching in multiple directions and sharpening like a blade. It caught the Commander off guard, its jump putting him directly in the path of a number of those ramifications. Still, his next Bakudo came up in record time, but not even that could block everything. After the Getsuga Tensho had passed and the barrier dropped, the old man sported two shallow cuts on his sword-arm and side and a deeper one on his right shoulder.

Ichigo swore under his breath as he urged his inner hollow to take care of his wound, while both his full-bring kneepads crumbled down, reduced to dust after his attack. He had admittedly hoped for more with it, maybe a death blow or a crippling one, and with anyone else he would have gotten his wish, but Genryusai Shigekuni Yamamoto wasn't the leader of all shinigami for nothing. He didn't even inspect his gashes, though the one on the shoulder was oozing a respectable amount of blood, opting to call for his untapped reserves of reiatsu, instead.

"Bankai," he said, the first word he had uttered that night.

And it was terrifying.

His next attack came in the form of the pressure itself, an almost physical wall of heat and kinetic energy that smashed against Ichigo with the power of a burning freight train. The red-head was forced to close his eyes as he braced against it with everything he had, human, shinigami and hollow powers alike.

He barely managed to stay on his feet.

Thankfully, that startling initial discharge of reiatsu waned a lot before settling to a more bearable level. It was by no means reasonable, such vast energy was simply too much, but at least it left Ichigo able to move. He opened his eyes carefully and pointed them at the new old man now standing in front of him. As far as he knew, no one had ever seen his bankai and lived to tell the tale.

Captain Commander Yamamoto was literally glowing, his body red-hot while his shinigami uniform and haori quickly burned down to ashes. Steam rose from his skin and flesh where it met the fresh air, creating a thick cloud of vapor floating upwards and away from him. The transformation must have not included his hair, because his long grey beard and eyebrows had disappeared entirely, most likely singed away by the overheated flesh.

After a couple of seconds he was bare naked and the wounds that had been opened by the last attack had cauterized until they were hardly distinguishable from the countless others marking his body.

Ichigo looked at him, at his unchanged emotionless expression, and then at Ryujin Jakka, now fused to his arm from the tsuka, glowing as well. A part of him understood immediately how his destiny had changed, now.

He was a dead man.

The heat became physically crushing as soon as the Commander attacked, sword slashing down against his and eliciting a high-pitched clang and squeal from the steel. The red-head had never heard his zanpakuto make such a sound, although it vaguely reminded him of the time he broke dozens of Zangetsu while training to achieve bankai. He hurriedly fell back with his throat on fire and watering eyes, the scorching air threatening to overcome his defenses and senses alike. Yamamoto remained hot on his heels, cloud of steam trailing behind as he went, and every swish of his arm felt like a volcano coughing on him.

Ichigo struggled with all his might, used every trick he knew and some he came up with on the fly, trying to hurt him, bind him, tire him and throw him into a time current, but he was starting to think he was fighting the exact definition of a losing battle. _Toshiro_, in his bankai form, would have been hard pressed to resist, much less actually affect the Commander. His heat-converted reiatsu wore off Balas and Getsuga Tensho before they could even reach its owner, with Mugetsu, although admittedly a weakened version of it, being the only move to power through. But at that point, the old man only had to use a quick low-level Bakudo and what remained of the original attack barely nicked his chest.

Ichigo's full-bring armor had fallen apart at some point of the last exchange and only the lower half of his Shihakusho survived. While his left arm had completely healed and his hollow mask was still in place, the red-head knew it was only a matter of time.

He was going to fail them all.

Latching onto his desperation was all he could do not to drop Tensa Zangetsu and let Yamamoto finish him. He jerked his sword-arm up to parry the next swing of Ryujin Jakka but he couldn't do much to stop the Commander's left fist as it slammed onto his side with the power of a cannon ball.

The pain was unlike anything he had ever endured, searing, piercing and numbing all at the same time. It spread throughout the rest of his body as he flew away, not even noticing it when he hit the ground and rolled along for several hundred feet. When, surely years later, he regained enough willpower to bear the world of pain and look down at himself, he finally saw that the old man's Ikkotsu had blown chunks of his hip into nothingness. A voice from within whispered that their powers would heal that too, but that would have just meant delaying the inevitable.

He sat up, zanpakuto gripped tightly in his hand. By some kind of miracle, he had managed not to fly into any time current, but he had no idea how far he had gone down the Dangai. Now, even if he got out of there immediately, who knew where and _when_ he would reappear…

Preceding a cloud of steam, Captain Commander Yamamoto landed in front of him with grace defying his old age. Everything about him defied old age.

"I guess," Ichigo began, struggling to form comprehensible words, "I guess I should… feel honored… to have pushed you into bankai. It must… have been a long time… considering the length of your beard."

He started wheezing out something distantly resembling laughter, more a result of raging nerves and emotions than real amusement, and he had to clutch his side in pain when the wound seemed to explode at every coughing sound. The hysterical cackle turned to sobs and hiccups soon enough and he pulled at his own hair, sticking out of the Hollow mask.

"Damn it, Gramps!" he wailed. "Why… why does it have to be like this?"

He looked up at him and this time sadness and regret were twisting Yamamoto's features into a pained grimace. The Commander wouldn't stop, though, Ichigo didn't kid himself even for a moment. The old man could have felt sorrow, even shame, for what he had decided to do, but he knew it was the best and maybe the only solution to save Soul Society and probably the world.

Deep down, a part of Ichigo agreed with him.

That was why it had been such a difficult war to fight, a war where the enemy was a friend and his motives were justifiable, even reasonable in some way. It was hard to let anger fuel your spirit at that point, although the need for survival was enough more often than not.

And that was what kicked in right there and then, while Ichigo lay on the floor of the Dangai with a healing hip and tears streaming down his cheeks. He wasn't going to die. He had to keep moving, keep fighting.

Keep hoping.

_Horse, Zangetsu… give me everything you've got left._

Both his inner hollow and his zanpakuto reacted immediately at the command, the former hissing in laughter that was so unlike his usual cackle that it could have been nothing other than fake. Reiatsu started leaking into him, slowly at first but increasing in amount each second. There would be repercussions for this foolish and rash act, but Ichigo didn't care at the moment. He tried to keep it in check, hidden to his enemy, but something must have slipped out, either in his spiritual pressure or in his expression, because Yamamoto blinked and then was immediately upon him.

Ichigo rolled backwards and out of reach long enough to stand up again and put some distance between him and Ryujin Jakka. He stopped trying to erase his new reiatsu, and Shihakusho and full-bring armor restored themselves to completion. His side wound closed at once, healing completely in a matter of instants, and the terrible heat coming from the pursuing Commander finally stopped against his renewed powers. He used sonido and shunpo one after another, buying himself as much time as possible while he waited for his inner hollow and Zangetsu to pass all their energy over to him. One of the old man's Hado almost pushed him down a time current, but he was able to avoid it at the last possible moment with a Kido of his own.

Oddly enough, the walls of flames from Yamamoto's shikai would have worked much better in this situation. The massive offensive and defensive power granted to him by Ryujin Jakka's bankai weren't as effective when chasing after an elusive opponent. Of course, the fighters with enough reiatsu to resist that spiritual pressure could have been counted on the fingers of one hand, but when in top condition, Ichigo was probably at the top of that short list.

He was just about ready to turn on his heel and make his last stand, when a loud whistling sound pierced the deep silence of the Dangai. It stopped a second later, only to repeat over and over for the next minute, the time it took for a yellow light to appear down the tunnel. As it moved closer, Ichigo could eventually make out a train-shaped Koryu rolling onward and towards them.

_Kototsu!_

A plan immediately forming in his mind, Ichigo came to a halt and turned around to face his enemy.

The glowing Commander slammed against him with his whole body behind the blow, Ryujin Jakka clashing against Tensa Zangetsu like a hot-red hammer. The red-head had to use both his hands to keep the old man at bay, while his strongest Cero to date began forming between his mask's horns. Yamamoto's Kido was faster, the triangle of light he drew in the air with his free hand shooting at him and enlarging to wrap his body, but his full-bring armor mostly took care of it. As the Kototsu approached, he ignored the slow tightening of the Commander's Bakudo and released his hollow blast.

The large red beam impacted against Yamamoto's glowing skin with an impressive explosion that both deafened and blinded him, something Ichigo didn't even try to resist. The red-head let his body be flung away, backwards and in the moving Koryu's direction, but he struggled to regain at least some modicum of balance to twist in mid-air and target the thing. Focusing on his human ability more than his shinigami's, he fired out a massive Getsuga Tensho aiming for the ground in front of the rushing time current and willing the tendrils of his full-bring powers to rise from it. When they latched onto the incoming Kototsu, they delved deeply into its whirling energy as he pulled.

The freight train could only whistle angrily as it was lifted high above and over the falling Ichigo. Its momentum brought him down to the ground a second later but the red-head was safely out of reach. He had managed to time it perfectly and now the moving Koryu was going straight for Captain Commander Yamamoto.

Even skidding down the floor as awkwardly as he was, Ichigo couldn't shift his eyes off the scene. The Cero-induced explosion had winded down enough to let him see through, and he wasn't all that surprised that the old man looked almost unscratched even after such a powerful point-blank attack. A new indentation had appeared on his chin but that was it.

The red-head grinned.

Against the Kototsu it would be a whole different story. No matter how powerful, any zanpakuto that came in contact with the moving time-current froze still, together with its user.

He had done it.

But in the time it took him to simply _think_ that thought, his exultance crashed and burned under the power of Ryujin Jakka.

As the rushing Koryu closed on him, Yamamoto's sword-arm swished down to the ground. The old man's scream drowned out every other noise as power unlike anything Ichigo had ever felt generated from the zanpakuto and hit the Kototsu, stopping its advance an inch before it was too late and hurling it back at the red-head. An incredible wave of reiatsu and heat slammed against him a split of a second before the freight train did, making moving out of the way an impossible feat. Eyes widening in panic, he did the first thing that came to mind, reacting automatically to the threat by pushing at it with everything he had. Hollow, shinigami and full-bringer powers all came out of him, an explosion of energy and sound that would have saved his life if he had had enough time.

But when the Kototsu touched him, everything became futile. Surrounded by his own power, Yamamoto's and the moving time-current's, Kurosaki Ichigo was frozen into stillness, crushed and carried away by the redirected Koryu.

His terrified gaze met Yamamoto's sad one for the briefest of seconds before he was flung at the walls of the Dangai and everything went black.


	2. Chapter 2

Chapter 2

"Oi! Oi, boy! Can you hear me? Oi! I think he's conscious, guys! Yes, yes! He can hear me, finally! Thank god, I was _so_ bored!"

Waking up wasn't exactly what Kurosaki Ichigo had been expecting, much less doing so to a nagging voice. Slowly stirring from his slumber, he opened his eyes as the memories of Karakura and the Dangai filtered to his foggy brain. His hand went immediately behind his back, reaching for Zangetsu…

…only to find empty air where his zanpakuto should have been.

"Whoa! Easy there, lad! You're not in any danger."

Still as tensed as a guitar string, Ichigo finally focused his senses, hearing aside, to the world around him. He found himself sitting at a round table with three other people, their gazes all directed at him. He spared them but a glance for the moment, his gaze inevitably attracted to the scenery that surrounded him.

Whiteness. Whiteness all around.

He stared.

"Ah, you're not a cheater, then," that same cheery voice said, but Ichigo had to force himself to shift his gaze to its owner and off that… _nothingness_. "Your shock is very telling on the matter. You have no idea where you are, am I right, boy?"

The man talking to him was a shinigami, or so Ichigo deduced from the shihakusho he wore. He looked very old, with long white hair disappearing behind his back and a beard that, even curled as it was, easily reached his navel. His eyes were alert and lucid, and alight with amusement as he grinned widely at him, hands loudly tapping the table he was sitting at.

"Who are you?" Ichigo asked, dividing his attention between him and the unnatural scenery. "What is this place?"

"My name is Jushiro Kiko," the old shinigami said, "and this is the Clock Room. Welcome."

The red-head frowned, moving to stand up only to realize he couldn't. His hands slid down the table and under his waist, but his legs- no, the whole lower-half of his body wasn't answering him at all. And neither was his reiatsu. He tried to call up power, enough to shatter the earth and split the sky, but it never came. And yet, it was there, inside of him. He could feel it writhing and seething, waiting to get out. But then why-

"W-what's going on!?"

"Calm down, boy, there's no need to panic just yet." the old man said. "And stop trying to use your reiatsu in here. The room won't allow it."

Barely listening to the words of the shinigami, Ichigo pressed his hands against the table and pushed with all his might, willing his body to cooperate, to get him away from there. The man that had introduced himself as Jushiro Kiko continued yapping in the background but the red-head was too freaked out to pay attention to it. He didn't know how long he struggled to stand, but he finally gave it up and forced himself to calm down.

"Why?" he breathed out, "Why can't I move?"

The old shinigami stopped in his tracks at his question, interrupting whatever he had been saying.

"I told you, the room won't allow it," he answered. "And where would you want to go, anyway?"

And he laughed boisterously at the proclamation, widely gesturing at the white world that engulfed them. Ichigo had to admit that he had a point, and after a few more attempts, he decided to just concentrate on the matter at hand.

"Good. At least you've got some sense…" the old man said before smiling cheekily. "Or is that resignation?"

"What's going on, gramps?" Ichigo cut short, scowling at him.

His gaze traveled to the other two men sitting at the table. The one in front of him was a shinigami as well but he wasn't nearly as old, nor as chatty as the old guy to his left. He hadn't actually said anything since the red-head had woken up, and now that he watched him more closely, he realized he simply couldn't. He appeared to be all but frozen in his seat, only his eyes occasionally moving about. He wasn't even blinking.

The last guy sat to Ichigo's right, in front of Jushiro. He didn't look very old and wasn't wearing a shihakusho, but a white lab-coat slightly singed at the sleeves. He was also sporting a nasty smile even as he murmured intelligible words under his breath, and the grin gained a few more inches and degrees of creepiness under the red-head's scrutiny.

"Where are my manners? I really should introduce my companions since they can't!" Jushiro said, noticing his interest. "The unmoving bloke in front of you is Kanto. He refuses to give me his real name… something about paradoxes - must be famous, the bastard. Ignore the one whispering like a madman. I don't know anything about him aside from the fact that he's a cheater. As for what's going on…" The shinigami beamed at him. "You're about to travel back in time, boy."

Ichigo blinked. "Come again?"

The place – _Clock Room, was it?_ – boomed with laughter as Jushiro threw his own head backwards and cackled.

"You heard me," he said after regaining a semblance of seriousness. "This is a mysterious chamber where people occasionally stumble into after they fall prey to the time-currents of the Precipice World. I'm assuming that's how you arrived here, too, hmm?"

Ichigo nodded dumbly while he tried to wrap his mind around the man's words, even as images of Karakura in disarray and Yamamoto in the Dangai assaulted him.

The old shinigami ignored his shock and continued. "That speaks quite highly of your reiatsu level. Only a selected few – the strongest – of the poor bastards caught by the Koryu are brought to this room. The vast majority simply finds their end there. But for us…" and here his grin gained a bitter shade, "this is just the beginning, in a way."

Ichigo shifted his gaze to the man to his right when his mumbling grew louder, exultance making its way into his voice. The deranged smile hadn't moved from his lips, on the contrary it had widened even more. And finally the red-head could make out just what exactly the crazy guy was saying.

"600720188. 600720189. 600720190. 600720191. 600720192."

"Hush you!" Jushiro snapped at him and with a sneer the man went back to his usual mumbling. "Nutty bastard…"

Ichigo finally stopped staring. "What is he doing?"

"Heh," the man snorted, shaking his head. "He's counting. Counting seconds, to be exact. Judging by the look on his face, it seems like he still has a good chance to make it, in his estimation at least."

"Make it?" the substitute shinigami asked in confusion. "What do you mean?"

"Look down, boy."

The red-head complied, finally checking out the table more closely and starting in surprise at what he saw. He had been completely wrong from the start. What he was sitting at wasn't a table at all, but a clock, round dial facing up towards the white sky. He followed its stone hands for a while as they moved silently over the rock surface, thanks to unseen mechanisms. The number 12 was inscribed directly in front of Ichigo's spot and he carefully brushed it with his fingers, marveling at how warm and… powerful the stone felt under his hand.

"You were pretty lucky," Jushiro said and for the first time something beside amusement and excitement entered his voice. "Twelve is the best position to end up in, especially for someone as young as you most certainly are. You just might have a chance, after all."

"That's the second time you've mentioned chances, gramps." Ichigo said warily, looking back up. "And stop calling me boy. I'm twenty-eight, geez."

"Such a child." The old shinigami smiled cheekily. "And you might want to introduce yourself if you want to be called something else… never mind quitting the gramps-thing."

The red-head sighed quietly, both at the additional jab and at the soft reprimanding tone in the old shinigami's voice. "I'm Ichigo. Kurosaki Ichigo."

"Well, then, Kurosaki Ichigo," Jushiro Kikou exclaimed loudly, "let me explain what you got yourself into, hmm? As I said, this place is called the Clock Room and now you know why, hah!"

And he chuckled again at what he must have thought as a joke, white beard quivering in front of his chest.

"No one knows who created it," he continued, "but this room has existed and has been known in my timeline for thousands of years. Only a few have entered it and only four at the time. Five if you actually consider the one who activates the mechanism. It has something to do with the Dangai but everyone arrives here a bit differently than the others. There are four spots around the clock and when they're all filled, there needs to be a fifth person to trigger the departure. Once it happens, the four sitting travelers are sent back to some point of their past while the fifth man occupies the first position around the clock. And so it continues, again and again."

The red-head stayed quite for a long minute, glancing at the other men listening in. "Why did you say I was lucky?" he asked, then noticing the look of hatred and envy the mumbling guy sent his way at that question.

The old shinigami stopped tapping the rock surface, spreading his hands further down the clock and showing the number inscribed in front of him.

"Because the time-travel depends on the occupied position and the time that passes since everyone's arrival in the room." He gestured at himself. "Mine is position number 3. For every second that I sit here, I'll be brought back a whole day to the past, _my _past, counting from the moment in time before I entered the room. For position number 6, Kanto's, every second is worth an hour into the past. As for the crazy cheater's position, number 9, every second is worth a minute." He smirked slowly, looking down at Ichigo's spot at the clock. "For you and your position number 12, every second in here corresponds to an actual second of time-travel."

Ichigo took a moment to think it through.

"That does seem convenient."

Jushiro smirked. "Convenient is quite a soft way to put it. You see, even though we rest as souls, here, we are not eternal. We haven't just been existing since forever, you know? And if a soul travels to a point in time that is _prior_ to its origin, it simply can't take the place of its past counterpart."

"What happens, then?" the red-head asked, worried, but the old shinigami shrugged.

"Your guess is as good as mine. Some say you disappear, but there's nothing to back that claim, nor any other. _But_, I was told something by the four men I had to send to the past before taking my seat. They seemed to be convinced – I don't really know why – that such an unfortunate soul wouldn't simply stop existing if unable to find its rightful placement. Rather it would become- no, it would _reincarnate_ into something else. That's what the predecessor of my position hoped fervently, anyway. He too, like me, had far outlived his past existence with his stay in here."

Ichigo looked at the man in silence but something of his inner turmoil must have been evident because Jushiro laughed boisterously again before fixing him with a determined stare.

"I'm going to be just fine, boy," he said confidently. "I believe what that man said was true, and my frozen companion, here, thinks the same. And since he's a cheater too, I have faith he has more pieces of information than me to be so sure of it."

The substitute-shinigami rubbed the bridge of his nose, glancing at the other men sitting around the clock. "Cheater?"

"Oh yes. The both of them are. They're not here by accident, unlike us. Kanto is in the state you see him in exactly because he tried to enter this room on purpose, but something must have gone wrong with his attempt." He sighed in disappointment, shaking his head at the unmoving man. "The impromptu method of communication we have established isn't very suited to a more precise explanation, I'm afraid. Isn't that right, pal?"

On his part, Kanto just rolled his eyes to the white sky.

"Right," Jushiro continued, apparently satisfied with the answer. "As for the mumbling fool, he's been counting from the moment he appeared in his seat. He already knew where he was and what was going on." He glowered at the man resolutely keeping up his business. "Such an idiotic way to pass the time in here. Stupid! It's not like he can affect the outcome of his travel in any way… Plus it's boring! _Boooooring_!" He scoffed, ignoring the other's glare. "Jerk."

Ichigo checked the glaring contest between the two for a while. "How long have you been here, gramps?"

"Hm? Oh," the old shinigami started, suddenly remembering their conversation. "Who knows? A couple of centuries, give or take."

The red-head gulped. "That would make it-"

"It would make it far too long, boy," he interrupted him. "I had been around for almost half a millennium before arriving here, but with the conversion from seconds to days… Ah! I'll be probably reborn as a hawk! I've always wanted to fly!"

"You're…" Ichigo started hesitantly, "awfully nonchalant about this."

Jushiro smirked.

"I have had enough time to mourn my fate. So has Kanto, who has arrived something like a hundred years ago to keep me company… somewhat. Then it was the jerk's turn perhaps twenty years ago."

"And now me," the substitute-shinigami said quietly.

"And now you," the old man repeated more seriously. "Twenty-eight-years-old, was it? That's how long you can wait. If the fifth person doesn't arrive here by then, your fate and mine will be the same."

Ichigo closed his eyes, cutting off Jushiro and the whiteness of the world around him. Images of the battle to save his home started surfacing again, dominated all around by the wide rift in the dimensional barrier between Karakura and Soul Society. Was it possible… could it be that this was the chance he needed to make it right? Cancel his failure, or even the causes of all that mess?

He opened his eyes again, a determined look on his face. Not everything was lost, not yet. This was such a lucky break, no matter how he looked at it. Finding a second chance out of a fight with Captain Commander Yamamoto… it went beyond miraculous.

He would save his home.

He would _not_ fail this time.

"Oh-oh!" Jushiro suddenly said, grinning at him with an excited glint in his eyes. "It looks like someone has no intention of going down without a fight." The smile was soon mirrored almost exactly on Ichigo's face. "This should make our wait more enjoyable."

* * *

"What are you doing here?"

The soft words pierced through the unreal silence surrounding Kurosaki Ichigo and caused a pang of sadness to rise from his chest. He continued staring at Karakura Town, his eyes shifting from one sky-scraper to the other, from the park near his house to his family clinic. Water flowed through everything in quiet waves, pushed back and forth by who-knew what unseen force, just like the white clouds drifting by to a non-existent wind.

The red-head sighed.

The scenery was simply too fake for him to enjoy it fully.

"This view soothes me, Zangetsu," he answered after a moment. "Yes, it's a slanted replica… but it helps."

The zanpakuto spirit walked over the building's windows before gracefully sitting down next to him. Together they watched the manifestation of Ichigo's inner world, that upside-down version of Karakura Town, while a companionable silence settled between them.

"I miss it, Old Man," Ichigo eventually said, his voice barely above a whisper. "I miss everyone so much."

Zangetsu didn't comment. It wasn't the first time they had such a discussion and the spirit wasn't big on comforting.

The substitute-shinigami sighed again, his eyes roaming restlessly through his hometown. The wait was getting to him more and more. Years had passed since he had first arrived in the Clock Room and there were just so many things to do in there not to go crazy. It was either a chat with Jushiro, a spar with his zanpakuto and Inner Hollow, or a bit of Karakura-contemplation.

He had been trying to use the Jerk's counting as point of reference, but he wasn't sure about how long it had been. Math had never been his forte, nor was Jushiro's, and he could only manage a vague estimation - a decade, more or less. Lately though, the mumbling madman had started looking ever more panicked and desperate, and that was troublesome. His time was running out, it seemed, and the anxiety he exuded was beginning to wear Ichigo out, too.

Beside that, Jushiro's stories had apparently come to an end. He had been a seemingly unlimited source of entertainment and information at the beginning of the red-head's stay in the Clock Room, but conversations' topics had noticeably thinned out recently, often replaced by old ones repeated multiple times. The old shinigami had lived quite a long life, first as a human and then in Soul Society and in the Spirit King's realm, but years and years of just recounting had been enough to cover it all. That well was positively dry.

In any other situation, Ichigo doubted he would have minded much, but in that place, everything was harder to bear than in the real world, and he could practically feel his patience running out. Deciding _not_ to share important information about his own past hadn't helped much either, but he felt somewhat safer that way. The theory behind the time-travel was hardly a sure thing and he didn't want to risk altering a situation he was at least familiar with in a way that could jeopardize his eventual intervention. If shutting up could help him, he would gladly endure the additional boredom. Especially when, beside Jushiro and Kanto, the Jerk was there to listen to him as well, and he still had a chance to make it to the past _as himself_.

He was really at his limits, though, or that was how he felt, anyway. Even the deep silence of his inner world was getting on his nerves.

"It's too quiet in here," he said. "Where's Horse?"

"Sleeping, I'd imagine," Zangetsu said. "Did you want to have a match?"

The substitute shinigami considered the offer for a second.

"I'm not really in the mood, I think. Let him satisfy his needs to his heart's content. Maybe he'll be more bearable afterwards."

"They're not actual needs. He's-"

"You know what I mean," he interrupted the spirit before he could go into lecture mode. "Let him do as he pleases."

Zangetsu just nodded. Even this discussion wasn't new at all. Eating, drinking, sleeping… in the Clock room, all the basic needs a body and even a soul felt regularly while in the real world, were simply suppressed by whatever kept them all there. That was why the Jerk had kept on counting from the first moment he had arrived, why Jushiro could talk for days on end and why Ichigo just didn't care for sleep at all.

While his Inner Hollow was technically the same, he had decided to purposefully go out of his way to keep up with all those activities, no matter how superfluous they had become. Maybe it was that pronounced primal side of his, or maybe it was simply a way to maintain a semblance of normalcy, but whatever the case, it seemed to be a good solution for the Hollow. Having the chance to lash out with all his power without repercussions helped too, of course. While normally Zangetsu had to rein in on him to avoid his malevolent energy from spilling out, in the Clock Room no reiatsu was allowed outside the soul. Zangetsu itself, Ichigo's sword, was effectively sealed inside of him, something that had never happened in his life. Horse had obviously taken full advantage of it.

"I envy him, you know?" he said eventually, staring into the distance and not really looking at anything. "He's not exactly glad he's here, but to him it's not that different from when we were outside."

"He has most of what he wants," the zanpakuto spirit agreed, "and pretends to have most of what he needs. He's a simple creature, but smart and adaptable enough to reach the fine balance he's currently in, as much as the concept of balance can be applied to a Hollow, anyway."

The substitute-shinigami snorted. "Don't let him hear you say that."

"And _you_ shouldn't let him hear you say you envy him," Zangetsu quipped back.

"Yeah, that wouldn't end well," Ichigo said, wincing.

The Old Man took a moment before resuming. "He misses it, too. The real world."

The red-head turned to the spirit, a little surprised by the nostalgic smile playing on his lips.

"I guess," he said a second later, a similar expression forming on his face. "I think he should-"

But the next few words were lost as soon as he looked back at Zangetsu, who was staring up at the sky with the air of someone trying to listen to a distant sound. Ichigo mirrored him immediately and had just realized what was going on when the spirit spoke up.

"Something is happening outside."

The substitute-shinigami didn't need to be told anything else. He closed his eyes, and with barely a second thought, willed himself to exit his inner world and shift his conscience back to the Clock Room.

When he got there, his heart skipped a beat.

There was a fifth person standing there.

"-been here so long that I will miss this place. It's been my home for hundreds of years and… heh, I must admit I'm a bit anxious about what is going to become of me, now," Jushiro was saying animatedly. He noticed Ichigo's open eyes. "Ah! Boy! You're going to make it, aren't you happy? Look who's here!"

Ichigo was looking already – staring, actually – at the unknown shinigami peering down at them from behind Kanto. He looked fairly old and strong, with long, white scars and battle-hardened eyes standing out jarringly against his tanned face. His expression was one of true shock, but it morphed into one of annoyance and then wariness as Jushiro kept on rambling. A high stone podium had appeared beside him, and on top of it, an oddly glimmering lever was only waiting to be activated.

The red-head breathed out slowly, hardly believing his eyes. An odd sensation of numbness was spreading through him, actually stopping him from feeling what he was _supposed_ to feel. Relief, joy, exultance. He repeated Jushiro's words to himself, that he was going to make it, to go home, but for some reason the concept just didn't seem to be reaching his heart. He looked on the proceeding with something akin to nonchalance.

"Just explain to me what's going on!" the newcomer snapped harshly, sounding like it wasn't the first time he had asked that. His body shifted forward awkwardly and Ichigo realized he was stuck to the ground like the four of them were to the Clock.

"Such impatience," Jushiro reprimanded, frowning at the scarred shinigami. "Is there no respect for the elders where you come from?"

Ichigo snorted. "I can relate to him, gramps. Listening to you running your mouth is still annoying even after all the practice I've got under my belt. When I first arrived here and didn't know what was happening, it was positively maddening."

The old man looked affronted. "You would have died of boredom if it hadn't been for me! I was the perfect companion!"

The red-head's retort died on his lips as, suddenly, the Jerk's voice rose in intensity. He was soon shouting his beloved numbers, instead of muttering them under his breath, while his glare tried to bore a hole into the four shinigami.

"What's gotten into you?" Jushiro asked with a wince, bringing his hands to his ears.

It was at that point that the Jerk stopped talking. It seemed to take him a superhuman effort, and his lips worked silently for a few more seconds, as if uncertain about what to do now that no sound was slipping out anymore.

"My goodness…" Jushiro said while Ichigo remained speechless.

Then the Jerk swallowed loudly, snarled and spoke up again.

"Y-you d-damn fools!" His lips continued moving even as he paused, silently mouthing what appeared to be numbers. "W-with… y-your… blathering! Stop wasting my time!" He turned towards the newcomer with hate in his eyes. "Just p-press the lever already! I-I-I-I still have a chance! I might have gotten s-s-something wrong, skipped a-a-a-a thousand here or there! I can still make it!"

The red-head stared. He barely recognized the man's voice, torn in rage, fear and desperation as it was, and the shock was preventing him from doing anything. The same couldn't be said for the newcomer, though. He simply couldn't know what astonishing event he was witnessing, after all.

"I won't do anything until I know what the hell is going on!" he snapped back, crossing his arms as if to make a point.

"Activate this damn thing or I swear to God-"

"What?" he interrupted. "What are you going to do? You're stuck like I am, aren't you? If you don't want to waste any more time, then _start answering my question_!"

If looks could have killed, the newcomer would have dropped dead right there and then.

"Fine," the Jerk snarled after a long moment of silence. He turned towards Jushiro. "But make it quick!"

And he went back to counting seconds with a furious expression on his face.

"So… what is going on?"

Ichigo waited silently while the old shinigami explained the situation. He could feel the anxiousness coming from the Jerk and he couldn't say he wasn't affected, either. His eyes roamed on their own towards Kanto but the frozen man looked serene, possibly resigned. He took some comfort from that, knowing that he had no reason to be nervous and on the contrary, he should have felt great. He was about to go back to Karakura, to his family and friends.

'_We're finally leaving this place,_' he told Zangetsu and Horse. Even his inner voice sounded emotionless and neutral, while the hollow's wild howls reached him as loudly as ever from within. He wondered dispassionately why he wasn't feeling as exultant, but Jushiro's explanation seemed to have come to an end.

"If that is all," he finally said, all the questions answered, "you may proceed."

The fifth shinigami was shaking his head in disbelief. "This is a tough one to swallow."

"It is the whole truth, as far as we know."

"Hurry… please!" the Jerk called suddenly, and this time anger had left place to worry and desperation.

The newcomer glanced at him and then at each one of them. He shook his head again and then went for the lever.

"Alright," he said.

Then he activated the mechanism.

Ichigo couldn't help but shiver as power rose around them. Looking down at the Clock, he noticed that its handles had started moving backwards, and so quickly that they were soon little more than a blur against the wooden surface.

He exchanged a look with Jushiro, pretty much his only companion for probably more than a decade, and a shaky smile appeared on his lips, growing ever so bigger as the man beamed in return.

"Well, boy…" the old shinigami started, a white glow shining around his spot at the Clock. "This is a goodbye."

The red-head let out a heavy breath. "Yeah…" He searched for something meaningful to say, but came up empty. "It's been fun, gramps."

Jushiro's grin turned into a smirk.

"See? Didn't I tell you-"

And before he could finish the sentence, he disappeared with a flash of light.

Ichigo blinked repeatedly at the empty spot and then looked at Kanto. He barely had the time to nod his goodbye before a new burst took the man away. He didn't bother for the Jerk at all, and his anguished face was the last thing he saw of him.

Then it was his turn.

"Hey."

He glanced forward, realizing that the fifth shinigami, soon to occupy the first position at the Clock, was staring at him. It looked like he had for quite some time, too.

"What?" the red-head asked.

There was a short pause and an incredible surge of power rising from beneath him. But as he steeled himself for what was about to happen, the man spoke up again.

"Do I know you from somewhere?"

Ichigo disappeared from the room with a stunned look on his face.

_Well... this isn't troubling at all._


	3. Chapter 3

Chapter 3

* * *

Kurosaki Isshin yawned, covering his mouth with his hand even though he was alone in the room. The clinic was totally silent now that the last patient had left, and that, coupled with the dullness of the medical file opened on the table, was threatening to give the final blow to his already drowsy mind.

He had had some troubles sleeping recently. Nightmares were becoming frequent and intense, often times reminding him of times long past or making him relive horrors he wanted to forget. Masaki was featured almost in all of them, countless surreal scenes of a twisted reality that wasn't so far from the truth. If he wasn't so tired and frightened by those dreams, he would find them fascinating in terms of how far his own brain could go to torment itself.

Helped by his son, most likely.

It was only a theory, of course. Ichigo's reiatsu had steadily increased in the latest months, seeping out in uncontrolled bursts out of the oblivious boy. Isshin had done everything possible to distance himself from that world, from shinigami and Hollows and from their powers, and for a long while he had actually succeeded. But now it wasn't a big stretch of imagination to think that his son's rising spiritual energy had started to affect him and his psyche, digging up things that should have stayed buried. It was too big a coincidence for him to dismiss it.

He yawned again, eyes roaming distractedly across the papers in his hand. He had wished a normal life for Ichigo, or as normal as it could have been. He had always been aware that the boy could see pluses since… since he was a child, and he knew that he would develop a higher reiatsu than most, but he would have never imagined it could reach such a level. All kinds of risks would come with it, as well as unwanted attention, and Isshin had to be ready for whatever was going to happen.

He sighed, rubbing his eyes tiredly. At least he hoped he was the only one suffering from it. He had seen no sign of distress or weariness from Yuzu and Karin.

He worked some more, tiredly going through his routine and usual nuances. Occasionally, he couldn't help but wish he had picked a different job when he had started his human life, but nothing had indicated it would have been boring at the time. He was just about to finally call it a day when Ichigo's spiritual energy fluctuated dangerously, spiked up incredibly for a second and finally disappeared.

Isshin's heart jumped to his throat as the whole world stopped around him.

An instant later, he was out of his seat and rushing out the backdoor, his left hand preemptively going into his pocket to pull out the device meant to separate his soul from the body. He jumped over the short fence surrounding the garden, not even bothering with the gate, and ran down the street towards his house. He continued focusing on the reiatsu of his family, but his daughters' were still there, almost imperceptible as always. He couldn't sense Ichigo's even as he got home.

He burst through the front door with the force of a wrecking ball, immediately going for the stairs.

"Dad!" Yuzu greeted him from the couch.

"Ichigo is upstairs," Karin said matter-of-factly, not even moving her eyes from the TV. They probably thought this was one of his surprise attacks against his son, at least until they saw his face.

"What's wrong?" Yuzu then said hesitantly, but Isshin was already rushing to the second floor.

He climbed the stairs four steps at a time and reached the landing in a second, swerving into the corridor so fast he almost lost his balance. He was already expecting the worst when he pushed the door open with his shoulder and barged into his son's bedroom.

Ichigo was standing calmly in the middle of the room. He was sporting a small smile and the expression of someone who had been expecting this. He seemed totally fine.

Isshin went for a roundhouse kick to the head.

"You didn't do your homework, _did you_?" he shouted as he charged.

But for the first time he could remember, the boy parried his initial attack. Easily.

"Is that how you greet your son?" Ichigo said simply, with hardly any of his usual vehemence. That strange, little smile was still there, stretching his lips in a very odd expression. "I can't say I missed _this_."

The grip on his leg was firm and accurate, and the former shinigami was a bit surprised when it was freed without retaliation.

He stared at his son as if he was meeting him for the first time.

"Ichigo?"

The red-head's smile got wider and sad at the same time, an almost nostalgic quality appearing into it.

"Dad," he said. "We need to talk."

And Isshin immediately knew that everything was different.

* * *

Inside Urahara's shop, Kurosaki Ichigo realized for the first time how his story sounded totally unbelievable. So much so that his audience seemed to be buying it.

It was a strange thing to witness. The longer he told the tale of Karakura's war with Soul Society and the theory behind the Clock Room, the more his father and Kisuke nodded their heads and asked him interested questions. By the end of his recounting, there was no doubt in his mind that both men believed him. Despite all the crazy stuff, there were just too many details, too much knowledge that he shouldn't have possessed and that apparently he had, instead. Also, they would have been such bold lies that it was actually easier to consider them as truth.

"So you're what? Forty?" his dad asked him with a frown.

"Almost," he corrected. "Judging by today's date, I spent a little over twelve years waiting in the Clock Room and I was twenty-seven when the rift appeared."

"My goodness," the man muttered. "This will take some getting used to."

"But going back to this _rift_," Urahara stepped in. He had been reflecting in silence for a while now, but it was evident his mind was mainly focused on that. "You say you don't actually know where it is."

The red-head shook his head. "Not exactly. No one even knew it existed until it was too big to miss. It expanded all of a sudden, practically devouring a whole block and stretching under our very eyes. You started examining it but… it was too late."

The man scratched his chin thoughtfully. "What did I discover?"

"Not much," Ichigo admitted, "at least as far as I know. I left it up to you and went fighting. The Gotei 13 were on us after only a few hours, after all. Last thing I saw of you, you were saying its rate of growth was exponentially greater by the second. Something about the rift feeding on itself. I already told you the rest: energy was leaking from Soul Society to Karakura through it, in such an amount that the Seireitei would have disappeared in mere hours."

The former Captain of the 12th Division let out a noncommittal sound as he pondered the information. "But I was sure that the cause, or at least an affecting element, was the reiatsu on _this_ side of the rift, correct?"

"Yes. You and the Freak both agreed on that." He smirked a little at the curious looks he received. "That's Mayuri."

"Oh," Urahara murmured in understanding, gesturing at him to continue.

"He said that the presence of so many spiritual entities in Karakura had been influencing the rift for years."

The man nodded, seemingly fascinated. "Reiatsu is such a volatile and all-encompassing energy. Did you know it interacts with electromagnetic forces and even gravity?" And at the shake of Ichigo's head he continued. "I can actually see it affecting the barrier between the human world and Soul Society in such a way, under the right, _extreme_ circumstances. My guess is a great concentration of it had pooled around Karakura and was drawing more in from the Seireitei. That's why Yamamoto's final solution was to destroy the town."

The red-head's face darkened immediately at the reminder. "I… I still can't force myself to blame them. Not when I myself was a part of the problem."

His father winced a little at the declaration. "You letting out spiritual energy like it's body-heat?"

Ichigo winced. "That and all the large fights my presence here attracted. Karakura was put in such a condition because of me."

"You couldn't have known."

The substitute shinigami smiled a little at the forcefulness in his dad's voice. The man hadn't hesitated a moment.

"I know," he agreed quietly. "And it's something I'm here to fix, anyway."

Urahara studied him for a long second. "You have a plan."

It was a statement, not a question.

"I had twelve long years to think about this," the red-head said. "I need your help, though."

Kisuke smiled. "The fact you're here telling me all this is quite a clue already. You want me to fix this rift-problem before it gets too big to be handled."

"For a start," Ichigo said with a nod. "I wouldn't know where to begin with to stop this thing, and asking for Soul Society's help is out of question. They can never find out."

He looked at both men intently, trying to convey how important this was.

"Sure," Urahara said with his unwavering grin. "Leave it to me. I quite like this little town and I'm not going to fail saving it after such a heads-up."

"We should have time," the substitute-shinigami agreed. "At least twelve years, but I'm going to do my best to lengthen that."

"What are you going to do?" his father asked.

"Stop Aizen first," he said at once. "As long as Urahara and the Hogyoku are here, he will have an interest in Karakura. He's bound to make a move, sooner rather than later, and I intend to kill him before that happens. But as much fun as it was the first time around, invading Soul Society isn't actually the most practical solution, especially with little time on the clock." He sighed. "I think the best way… is through the Shinigami Academy."

His father's eyebrows raised in surprise while Kisuke laughed. "Really?"

Ichigo scowled at the former Captain of the 12th Division as he hit the palm of his hand with his fan in amusement. "Really. I gave it a lot of thought and I can't see a safer solution. It will be an easier way to infiltrate the Seireitei, for starters. I shouldn't have any trouble graduating and entering the Gotei 13, and that will give me more time to deal with Aizen _and_ Tozen overtly. At this point in time, everyone still thinks they're good guys and loyal to Soul Society, and also considering the power of Aizen's zanpakuto, unmasking them would be too difficult, probably. I would end up fighting the whole Gotei 13, and that's something I'd avoid if possible."

Kisuke butted in at that point, cutting off a still unconvinced Isshin.

"I could probably use someone on the other side, too," he added. "There might be tests to do or data to gather and process."

"I figured as much, though I don't know if I'll be of any use with that," the red-head admitted.

"Is this really necessary?" his father finally asked. He looked at Ichigo seriously. "You leaving after all you've been through?"

"It's _because_ of what I've been through. I've seen Karakura destroyed and at war. I need to prevent all that."

Ichigo held Isshin's gaze without fear. He had missed him and everyone else so much, but he felt like this was a sacrifice he had to make. For everyone's safety. An understanding passed between them after a moment and the man nodded his head slowly.

"Alright," Urahara said then. "The new academic year won't start before… three weeks, if I'm not mistaken. Lucky you. You probably want to get there some time earlier, though."

"That's another reason why I came to you," he explained. "I'm… more than a little wary of the Dangai after all that happened and I wouldn't mind using your Senkaimon to cross to Soul Society."

"You know about my personal gateway, too?" the man said, sounding more amused than surprised. He grinned at Ichigo. "That won't be a problem, don't worry. Is there anything else?"

The red-head scratched his head sheepishly, a bit embarrassed for all his requests. "Uhm, yeah. I'm wondering about the state of my soul. I mean… I'm still me, but in my younger body. Could that be a problem?"

Kisuke temporarily stopped fanning himself. "I have no idea. I'd say yes if it wasn't _your_ soul in _your_ body, but even if older, it should still belong in there, I believe." A moment passed before he continued. "Want to find out?"

They left the room moments later, passing by the curious Tessai and the squabbling Jinta and Ururu, and made their way to the secret training area underground. There, after sealing the place, Urahara used the base of Benihime to release Ichigo's soul from his body.

"Damn," his father commented. "That's a long beard."

The red-head scratched his chin. "For some reason, hairs never stopped growing in the Clock Room."

"I don't think I'd recognize you if I met you on the street," the man said seriously, stunned. He gestured vaguely at his shihakusho-clad figure with clear uneasiness. "You look…"

"Nothing like your actual body," Urahara finished for him. "Hair and beard aside… you're simply older."

"You don't look forty, though," his father said, "but that's probably because you spent twelve of those years only as a soul. They age much more slowly without a body."

The substitute shinigami shrugged. "It's better this way, I think. I don't know if he was just talking trash, but Aizen claimed that he had kept an eye on me for a long time, even before the Hogyoku mess. If he can't match me with my fifteen-years-old-self, all the better. I need to change my name, though."

"That's not really necessary," Urahara dismissed with a wave of his hand. "There are billions of souls where you'll go and probably a few thousands of them go by the name Kurosaki Ichigo. You don't look anything like your father, either, so you'll be fine. You should worry more about your reiatsu."

Isshin immediately agreed. "That's an unmistakable signature right there. Also, that shihakusho… is it…"

"Ugh, yeah, it's made of reiatsu, too," Ichigo admitted. "I guess I have to change that as well, somehow."

They worked out a few more details before deciding to part ways.

"I'll take a quick look around the area of the rift," Urahara said, escorting them out of the secret ground, "but I doubt it's going to be easy to find. I might have to prepare some advanced equipment to detect it, since it must still be in its early stages."

"Thank you, Urahara," the substitute-shinigami said seriously, now back inside his body. "If there's anything I can do-"

"I'll handle it," the man interrupted him, closing the doors. The red-head could see a small smile on his lips as he turned around and walked towards his office. "Go spend some quality time with your family."

They watched him disappear around the corner, whistling merrily as he went. Ichigo sighed quietly at such a familiar sight.

"Were you two close? In your past life, I mean." The sudden question immediately drew his attention, as he looked at his father with a raised highbrow. The man shrugged his shoulders. "That was the impression you gave me. I'm sure he had it, too."

The red-head took a moment to think about it. Just what kind of relationship bound him to the quirky scientist?

"It's complicated," he said eventually. "He's helped me a lot and I know I can count on him when I ask him. It's when I don't that he's… unpredictable."

"Hmmm," Isshin murmured, and the substitute shinigami couldn't quite decide whether it was a sound of agreement or else. "You trust him on this."

"Yes."

"Then it's alright by me." He patted him on the shoulder and smiled. "Let's go home. We left Yuzu and Karin so abruptly, they might be wondering what has gotten into us."

"Heh," Ichigo huffed, smirking. "The answer is 'a lot'."

* * *

"Man, I'm not ready for two hours of Math. Do you think we could skip?"

Shrugging his shoulders, Kurosaki Ichigo took another sip from his juice box. He hadn't had one in decades.

"Nah," he said after having swallowed. "You can endure your ten minutes of embarrassment and the rest of boredom."

Asano Keigo dropped his head in defeat. "I don't wanna."

"Stop pouting," Kojima Mizuiro piped in. "Women will never find you attractive."

"Gah! Why do you have to say that?" the boy cried in dismay, dramatically lifting a hand to his heart. "Your harsh words shatter my confidence!"

The always calm and collected Kojima slowly closed his lunchbox before replying. "Sorry. I didn't know you had any left."

"Why, you little-"

Ichigo tuned them out at that point. He had forgotten how loud teenager-Keigo was, and Mizuiro wasn't much better, always riling him up. They were still fun to be around, but Ichigo always felt like something wasn't how it was supposed to. The sensation amplified tenfold around Chad, Orihime and Tatsuki. He had shared so many experiences with them that going back to their old relationships was pretty jarring. At least the one with Ishida was easier to handle since… there was none. He had passed him by a few days before, but no reaction.

Things were a bit better at home, where his father knew his story and his bond with Yuzu and Karin was already extremely strong at this point in time. Sure, it was weird to see them as little girls, probably as much as it was for his dad to know what _he_ was, but there was more a sense of continuity and familiarity contrary to his friends.

The substitute shinigami sighed. There was nothing he could do.

The days were passing by quickly and it wouldn't be long before he had to travel to Soul Society. His preparations were at a good point. He had managed to tweak his reiatsu effectively as to not be recognizable, altering it successfully with his fullbring powers. He would start using that full-time in the Seireitei, while it was strictly limited to Urahara's secrete training ground for now. He was currently compressing it to a very low level, though, trying to recreate what he could have been like at this point in time and knowing that it would make the life easier to the Gikon impersonating him in his absence. Training and educating the artificial soul into an acceptable Ichigo-poser was going flawlessly as well, and the red-head had to marvel at the learning and copying capabilities of the Gikon Urahara had provided him. He still wished he could find Kon, though.

He had had more trouble modifying his shihakusho into casual, not-shinigami clothes, than to change the appearance of his zanpakuto, which appeared to be a completely hopeless effort. The only way to affect Zangetsu was accessing bankai, and Ichigo really didn't want that. No, his full-time-released zanpakuto would have to remain constantly in shikai form. Its huge size would have to continue attracting all kinds of unwanted attention in this new timeline as well, but at least he was able to mask its power properly now, together with his own.

When the bell rang the end of lunch-break, he followed his squabbling friends back to class, only occasionally intervening in their discussion and feeling like an intruder when he did. He spoke a bit with Tatsuki and Orihime and exchanged a couple of monosyllables with Chad, that sensation never disappearing. It would be better if he didn't have to pretend. He hadn't expected this kind of reaction when inside the Clock Room, while he daydreamed about seeing all his friends again and going back to his life. It was quite disconcerting and a kind of pain he had never experienced in the past, subtle, sweet at times, but definitely sharp.

Always there.

By the end of the lessons, as he parted ways with his friends, he couldn't help but feel that he had both found and lost them at the same time.

"Ichigo!"

He turned curiously as Tatsuki jogged to catch up with him.

"What is it?"

The girl stopped in front of him and shrugged.

"I planned to go to your clinic," she said. "My wrist has been bothering me ever since my last fight."

"Do you want me to take a look at it?"

She looked wary at that offer. "I'll stick to ask your father, thanks."

He smiled a little, internally thinking about how easy it would be to heal her with his kido.

"I'm not going to mess with it," he insisted, but seeing that she was still unconvinced, he just resumed walking. "Suit yourself."

She fell into step with him and followed in silence. She was the one breaking it first, but only when the clinic was already in view.

"Ichigo… is everything alright?"

He turned towards her in surprise, but she was simply looking forward calmly. If he didn't know better, he would have doubted she had actually spoken. There was something, though, an almost invisible trace of what seemed like worry forming thin lines on her face.

He smiled. Trust Tatsuki, his childhood friend, to be the one realizing something was wrong with him. She had probably walked with him to find a chance to ask him that question.

"It's going to be fine," he said quietly, looking up ahead. Even to his own ears, it sounded like he was trying to convince himself more than her. "But thanks."

They didn't say anything else as they reached the Kurosaki clinic.

* * *

The night before his depart, Ichigo struggled to get some sleep. He stared at the ceiling, his brain restlessly going over what he was about to do, what he was about to give up.

He would miss Karakura town. He had missed it greatly during his confinement in the Clock Room, and now that he had it back, his heart ached at the thought of leaving it again. It didn't matter that he felt like he didn't belong… it was still his home. Leaving his body to a mod-soul wasn't easy on the mind either, but he reminded himself he would return to it – and to Karakura – occasionally. He would have to, if he wanted to go back to it after everything was taken care of. Urahara seemed to think that too much time without reuniting body and soul would be disastrous for him, after the traveling in time and the already pronounced differences it had caused.

As he lied in bed, a hollow suddenly appeared at the edge of his senses, proceeding to move closer to town. Ichigo split his focus between the creature and the shinigami patrolling the area, but judging by his movements, the man had yet to notice the threat. He had followed him a lot spiritually in the past few weeks, but it was no one he knew. He was competent enough, able to get rid of every hollow that had appeared until then… not that they had been anything special. He had given him a hand when possible, performing soul burials to pluses wandering in his area, but overall, the shinigami was doing a good job.

The red-head was getting annoyed though, as he waited patiently for the man to notice the evil presence arriving in town. On the contrary, the hollow seemed to have sensed him and was doing a better job of erasing its energy and circling around to attack from behind. Maybe the creature was better than the norm, or maybe the shinigami was tired, or distracted, but whatever the case, the monster was now in a good position to take the man by surprise.

"Come on…" Ichigo said under his breath.

The hollow finally attacked, stupidly dropping its concealment an instant before necessary. The decent spike of power that followed was definitely enough of a scare that the shinigami could react automatically and in time to stay alive. His reiatsu fluctuated wildly because of the fright and the adrenaline, making it hard for Ichigo to decide whether he had actually taken a hit or not. The two fought for the next few seconds and as the man's spiritual pressure stabilized, the red-head knew he had been injured.

He sat up, throwing the blankets aside. It wouldn't do to let him die on the night before his depart. Walking up to his desk, he reached for the Soul Candy in the case and swallowed it.

"Stay here," he told the Gikon in his body while he completely erased his reiatsu.

Without even waiting for an answer, he jumped on the windowsill and outside. A single shunpo was all it took him to arrive to the fight's location. He stopped on a building in the northern outskirts of Karakura and looked down just in time to see the shinigami clip the hollow in one of its eight legs. The spider-looking creature moved onwards anyway and the man was an instant too slow to totally avoid the charge. The glancing blow sent him flying against the wall, taking the air out of his lungs and the zanpakuto out of his hand. A nasty gash on his left arm was pouring blood to the ground continuously as he gasped in pain, not enough breath to even scream. The hollow wasn't in much better shape, with cuts and burns all over his body beside the missing leg, but it was still clearly able to attack. The shinigami, instead, had no ways to defend himself.

"Good thing I'm here," Ichigo muttered, dropping silently behind the monster and cleaving it in half with Zangetsu.

He was back to his room before the shinigami could realize he had been there, the only sign of his involvement being the dead hollow on the ground. He followed the man's reiatsu for a while longer, checking him to make sure he could heal himself fine for the time being, before crossing over to Soul Society and have a healer take a look at his injuries.

"Everything alright?" the Gikon asked him.

Ichigo looked back at his inhabited body and hesitated a moment. Every time he looked at himself from outside, he always spent a split of a second thinking he was talking to Kon again. Some habits took a while to die.

"Of course," he eventually said.

He re-entered his body and put the Soul Candy in its case, sighing a little when his eyes automatically shifted to the Lion plushy on his desk. Then he went back to bed, resuming his battle with sleep and nagging thoughts.

He lost.


End file.
